Synopsis:AU. In a world where Sybil Trelawney is never born, the prophecy remains, but goes unheard. How different will Harry Potter's life be, growing up in a world where Voldemort won? How long until a brilliant young man is noticed by the ever more brilliant Dark Lord?

Pairings:[Voldemort, Harry Potter] [Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy] [Theodore Nott, Luna Lovegood].

Warnings for: Complex philosophical headaches, needless violence, and the kind of sexual themes one would expect from a Dark Lord.

Authors note:
Hello all, and welcome to COTR. I do hope you enjoy the story, and I plan to update this as regularly as possible. This fic will be very eventual. I warn you that pretty soon, there's going to be a lot going on.
Rest assured though, Harry won't be eleven for very much longer. I just have a few loose ends to tie up here before we move onto the good stuff!

AN ( April 2017): I am currently in the process of editing all chapters before continuing this series. Mostly for grammar, but there may be small changes to how things were phrased, etc.

Chapter 1: Beginnings.

November 10th 1981

On the day a King is made, the battlefields bleed red.

On the day a King is made, women will grieve for their glorious dead.

On the day the Dark Lord was declared the 'Leader of Wizarding Britain', the day was marked only by the occasional flash of deadly green.

They were winning. The Dark Lord's forces had taken Hogwarts almost a year prior; the Ministry, in it's corruption, was but a façade under Lord Voldemort's control. All that was left, in the end, was to kill the one Wizard whom had ever been a challenge: Albus Dumbeldore.

It was almost anticlimactic at the finish line. There was no beautiful show down; no meeting of great minds, on some pathetic fallacy ridden day. The Dark Lord's spies finally had enough information to find the entrance to the Order of Phoenix's most secure base. The full wrath of his army descended, taking no chances nor prisoners.
Many died that day. Some of them were weak, and some of them were strong; some fought to the bitter end, and some begged for their lives from the start. Nonetheless, they all died in the end – the very last of the rebels.

When Dumbeldore died, it was not because Voldemort was definitely the stronger wizard. By the time Voldemort found him, he was already tired and wounded from some unknown battle, that had happened quite before the arrival of the Death Eaters. To this day, Voldemort did not know what had caused those wounds that gave them the final advantage, and somewhat ruined his expectations of their last stand; it irked him that he did not.

Voldemort did not mock him as he fell, and felt no great victory for causing him to. The old man died with a sad, knowing look on his wizened face and the last word he had said in the land of the living was "Gellert." – which confirmed a long-held suspicion that Dumbeldore had died with his fair share of secrets.

There was a silence then in the sprawling, underground structure. The silence seemed to extend out into infinity, and for a moment Voldemort had felt almost lost. He had spent his whole life planning this moment, and here it was. He had expected a sharper taste of victory, to feel the intangible elation of getting exactly what he wanted. He felt nothing. Lord Voldemort always felt nothing.

Just when the silence was threatening to swallow the very last of his sanity, it was broken. Not by the last cries of rebels, or the celebrations of his Death Eaters… but by the cries of a baby. Following the sound, Voldemort found himself in a small room – half blown apart by the battle - where there were two cribs side-by-side. One of the children, a chubby babe with brown eyes was crying. The other child, a dark haired boy with green eyes, was staring at him - almost pointedly not making a sound.
A moment later, before the Dark Lord could react to the discovery, he was joined by his right-hand woman, Bellatrix Lestrange.

She too, seemed oddly effected by the end of the battle. Her blood-thirst was legendary, and here she was with him at the finish line, unsure. After a long moment, she spoke:
"Do you want me to kill them?" she asked, softly. Her voice held none of its usual glee over the prospect of the bloodshed, and it was likely that the massacre of the previous hours had been enough to quench even her thirst. He also suspected that Bellatrix found no enjoyment in the murder of infants, who could not understand fight back, or challenge her.

"Who are they?" he asked. His weariness would have been evident, had he not been so naturally poised.

Bellatrix waved her wand with an almost bored expression, and the names of the children appeared in a floating black mist above their heads. It was an old spell, designed to help strangers identify and return lost children.
"Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom," read Bellatrix, seemingly thoughtful, and then added. "Pure blood names; blood traitors."

For a moment, Voldemort did consider just killing the children and ending the problem. Their parents had been thorns in his side for quite some time, and important in the rebellion against him. Especially the Potter woman; truly, she had been wasted on this war, mudblood or not. His gaze was then drawn to the green-eyed child, the quiet one, her son. The tot still held his gaze, and if Voldemort hadn't known that the child was not yet old enough to understand what had just happened, he'd have thought the expression was accusatory.

"Let them live," he relented, finally. "Their parents may have been fools, but they were far from squibs. We need children; we have a world to build."

And with that, Voldemort swept away into the night. It was the first time Harry James Potter would ever draw the attention of the Dark Lord.

It would not be the last.

August 20th 1991

The orphanage sat on the side of a quiet hill in the middle of nowhere; a field lost within a sea of other fields, deep in the heart of the Yorkshire countryside. This location could have been for many reasons; the air of the dales is said to be some of the cleanest, freshest air in all of England and it couldn't be so bad for the three hundred or so children that lived there to grow up with their lungs full of the stuff.
Another possible reason was that the building was large, and made of a bright, white stone that bore a startling resemblance to a fairy-tale castle and would undoubtedly draw the attention of passers-by. Luckily, being in the middle of nowhere, there were unlikely to be many passers-by.

'Really though,' thought an eleven year-old Harry Potter, as he smiled brightly at the view from one of the many windows of the Dining Hall, 'it's probably because of all the broomsticks'.

Harry Potter had been living at 'Malfoy orphanage' for the past eight years, and in his opinion, it was quite the best place in the world.

'Not that I have much to compare to,' he relented, internally. At the tender age of eleven, Harry had seen very little of the world outside of the orphanage; he could remember only very brief flashes of his life before he was brought there.
Of course, he'd been on outings to places like Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade, and every year the orphanage took them on holidays to different "secure areas" across Europe. This, however, did not count as experiencing the world to Harry, as these occasions had always been under the watchful eyes of the many staff. It was not what he would call 'adventure'.

His days here were usually spent in a sort of lazy, blissful haze. Mornings were usually spent in lessons where they were taught Mathematics, reading and writing, French, and everything else they'd need to get along in the world before they went to Hogwarts and began their magical education.

His afternoons were far more entertaining. Harry loved to fly, and he was good at it too. He also spent a fair amount of time getting up to mischief with his closest friends, much to the ire of the staff.
Harry had always been an extroverted, friendly boy and so he had made a large group of friends at the orphanage. His closest friends were all his own age, as they shared the same classes and had mostly grown up together; Terry Boot, Dean Thomas, and Hermione Granger were among that number and were presently lining up with him.

Harry allowed himself to be ushered into line by a matron, with the 30 or so other children.
"Harry, stop daydreaming!" scolded Hermione, who had left the line to rejoin him at the back. "Today we get our wands!"
Harry grinned.

Far away from the orphanage, in the grand and ancient castle that the Wizarding World knew as Hogwarts, the most important Wizard in said world felt a quite involuntary thrill of excitement.
He frowned momentarily at the distraction. These pesky, fleeting emotions were becoming somewhat of a curiosity to the Dark Lord. Mostly, this was because he very rarely experienced sensations that were so… pure, in their texture. It was also because he was quite sure that said emotions were not coming from him.
He had felt them sporadically throughout the last few years, and had mostly ignored them as some sort of psychological hiccup (he was, after all, still somewhat human), but they had been increasing in frequency for the past several months, and their magical signature was becoming more and more apparent. He filed this away for later consideration.

Refocusing, Voldemort noted that the thirteen death eaters present were watching him with what can only be described as bated breath. He had, after all, stopped mid-sentence and made an expression of displeasure and confusion. Less than this had lead him to use unforgivables (and worse) in the past.
With a look of unbidden amusement, he lounged back on his throne-like chair and observed them for a moment longer, wondering who would dare to breathe first.

"My Lord…?" came the careful voice of Lucius Malfoy, who was perched two seats down from his Master. The Death eaters were currently having their meeting around a long, polished wooden table. "You were speaking about the curriculum."

"Do you imagine that I have lost my train of thought, Lucius?" asked Voldemort lazily, giving the man what could only be described as a wolfish smile.

"No, my Lord," Lucius responded quickly.

Voldemort almost rolled his eyes; as much as he had enjoyed teaching his Death Eaters submission, he would be far more amused if they had a little backbone now and then.

"As I was saying," he continued, perfectly aware of where he had left off. "I am pleased with the improvements that have been made to the Hogwarts Curriculum, and of the general improvement of the student body."
Severus Snape, Bellatrix Lestrange and Regulus Black all received several nods at this. They had been teachers at Hogwarts for several years now, and had been instrumental in the implementation of these changes.
"However, I fear that some of the student body are not being sufficiently challenged. I will not have our most talented be dragged down by the incompetence of their peers. An advanced program will be set up for students that show promise, and I expect a list of students by Yule; the teaching of these classes will begin sometime after the Yule holidays."
There were several more nods, and Voldemort looked expectantly at them, non-verbally inviting questions. Severus was the first to comment.

"Will these advanced lessons be an accelerated program of a particular subject, for students who show promise in said subject? Or were you thinking more of a generally more advanced program for the all-round gifted?"

Tom considered this carefully before responding. "More the latter, however if a student does show a significant aptitude for a particular subject, it may be prudent to give them some individual tutelage from that subjects teacher."
He waved his hand, a universal symbol that he was now bored with the topic.

Voldemort continued, racing through his internal agenda so that he could be away from this dull meeting as quickly as possible.
"Verity." He turned his attention to the middle-aged woman sat somewhat towards the bottom of the table. She was the daughter of one of his oldest death-eaters, who had passed away recently from a rather unusual case of dragon pox. She was fervently loyal to the Dark Lord, and managed a lot of his dealings with ministry legislation. "You recently contacted me with regards to our laws regarding muggle-borns."

"Yes." said Verity, her tone reserved and eloquent. "As you know, as it stands, the law decrees that muggleborns are secondary citizens and not afforded the same rights regarding the ownership of property, wages, and various other facets of life." There was a murmuring around the table, and a general support of this fact. "However, the Ministry and public are posing the question as to whether this law will extend to those raised in our orphanages, or just those that received their wands prior to the war."

There was a pregnant pause about the table, as many considered their own views on the subject. Mudbloods, of course, had always been a source of derision to the mostly pure-blooded Death Eaters. However, with regards to the children of the orphanages, this was a slightly different matter. Voldemort voiced this a moment later:
"This is something that will have to be very carefully considered." He nodded thoughtfully to himself. "While I detest all that is muggle, and in the old world, muggleborns were a window to their weak, crumbling world – this is no longer the case. As we know, muggleborns are identical to their pureblood counterparts in terms of magic ability - and indeed, somewhere in their distant ancestry, do have magical blood. The problems of them bringing a filthy culture into our world is being erased; these children are raised together in the Wizarding world, away from the influence of lesser beings. By the time they reach Hogwarts, they have no loyalty left to their muggle families. Indeed, Verity, it is a point I will consider."
Verity, ever the diplomat, nodded appreciatively.

When Harry first touched the wand that would become his, it was like the whole world had filled with warmth. A happy, tingling sensation travelled down his arm and into his chest. The man before him gave him a wary half-smile.
Along the line, almost all of the other children had already received their wands and were excitedly chattering away with their peers. It had been a great relief to Harry, when after thirty-six different attempts, his wand had finally found him.

"Curious…" said the famous wand-maker. Ollivander was well known as being the best in Europe, perhaps even the world, and Harry afforded him every possible respect. "Curious indeed..."

"What's curious?" asked Harry, a little bewildered by the cryptic tone of the old man. Nobody was listening to their conversation; the rest of the children were preoccupied with their new wands, and the adults were preoccupied trying to get the children not to use their new wands.

Ollivander considered the boy, seeming to choose his words carefully. "The phoenix feather contained within that wand was a powerful, proud creature." Harry listened with fascination, and he felt his fingers on the wand tingle at the description. "And it only ever gave one other feather; the Wizard that is Master of that wand went on to do great things. Terrible, but great." The old wand maker looked both tired and interested. "What did you say your name was, child?"

"Harry Potter" he murmured, too engrossed in his new wand to notice the grave expression of the wand-maker.

"Well, Harry Potter, I believe you too will do great things." At that, the man offered him a strained smile and turned away. As he left, Harry distinctly thought he heard the man mutter under his breath, "terrible… but great."

He really didn't know what to make of that.